Each year, I feel that it is my responsibility to remember and remind others of Kristallnacht. It took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938 in Germany. During that dreadful night, a critical event took place that would seal the fate of six million European Jews. That was 85 years ago.
The event is known as Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.” The reason given by the Nazis was the assassination of German official Ernst Von Rath, shot two days prior by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish teenager reacting to his parents’ deportation. In reality, the boycott/pogrom of Jewish synagogues, schools, businesses and homes, resulting in the death of almost 100 Jewish people and the destruction of 7,500 properties, was extremely well planned and anything but a reaction to the death of a German official. As a result, 30,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps. Historians agree that Kristallnacht was the onset of the Holocaust, shifting Nazi antisemitism from mere rhetoric to pure violence and murder. It set in motion the death factories aimed at accomplishing “the final solution to the Jewish question.” They almost succeeded!
This year, more than ever, we need to revisit the 1930s and we must come to the sobering realization that that ominous era of destructive Jew hatred is upon us again, and this time, it is global. I have been a watchman for the last 23 years, and I often warned people that things would get very dicey for the Jewish people at some point in the future, but frankly, I never thought that I would witness this level of hatred and bloody violence in my lifetime, and yet, here we are!
The atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7 were straight out of the Nazi playbook, but what I was not expecting, at least not at that level, was the vocal and violent hatred of Israel and the Jewish people all around the globe. Within a week or two at the most, it seemed that the world had forgotten about the 1400 Israeli victims brutally maimed, raped, beheaded, burned alive and blown to pieces, not to mention the 200+ hostages taken by Hamas.
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Much of the world is now focusing on what they call a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The US is pushing for Israel to accept a cease-fire, re-labeling it with the woke term of “humanitarian pause.” A pause that would accomplish nothing except a respite allowing Hamas to regroup, re-organize and better prepare for their next wave of terror.
In the meantime, US Universities across the nation, including Ivy League campuses, are showing their true colors. Their antisemitism is no longer subdued or cloaked in anti-Zionism. The monster is out in the open on a bloody rampage. They scream for the death of Jewish people, like in the case of Cornell University in New York. What about the violent punching of a Jewish student at UMass?
The violence doesn’t stop on campuses. It overflows onto the streets of America and leaks all the way to the rest of the world. Just days ago, an angry mob broke into the Makhachkala International Airport in Russia’s Dagestan. they wanted to get to the Israeli travelers coming in on an El-Al flight from Tel Aviv. The rage demonstrated by the mob had all the markings of a modern-day pogrom. It was controlled and stopped by local authorities, but it clearly shows the level of animosity against the Jews. Killing is definitely an option.
Additionally, in Paris, France and in some of its suburbs, people have been painting Jewish stars of David on buildings and private residences to identify where Jewish people live. This too is straight out of the Kristallnacht playbook, not to mention the yellow star patch that Jewish people (including my family) were forced to wear in order to be easily identified by the Nazis. Are Jewish people being identified to be singled out and persecuted? This too, has all the markings of an organized campaign to separate the Jews from the rest of the population.
Finally, on the streets of Thousand Oaks, California, Paul Kessler, a Jewish man holding an Israeli flag at a street corner opposite a group of pro-Palestinians brandishing the modern Palestinian flag, was hit by a pro-Palestinian protester. The Jewish man died in the hospital hours later.
In my most recent book The Normalization of Antisemitism: When the Longest Hatred Becomes the New Normal, I identify ten steps toward the complete normalization of antisemitism: Apathy, lack of education, desensitization, low or incorrect reporting, no accountability, empowerment, demonization of the defenders, increased persecution of Jews and defenders, encouragement to kill, and, mass murder of Jews. I believe that the first nine of these criteria are in place, leaving only the mass murder of Jews as the final step towards the complete annihilation of the Jews. Looking at the events in front of our eyes, I might have been too conservative. The murder of Jews appears to also be on the current agenda of hatred that is spreading all over the world.
Kristallnacht was also a blatant boycott of Jewish businesses. Outside of the ongoing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which has been going against Israel and Jewish people worldwide since 2005, we see new levels of antisemitism and double standards in a lot of areas. Amazon recently denied the publishing of a Christian book by renowned Pastor and author Dr. Mark Hitchcock on the war between Hamas and Israel, titled “What’s Next: The Israel-Gaza War: Connecting Today’s Headlines to Tomorrow’s Prophetic Events.” It was claimed that the algorithms caught parts of the book that contained “offensive or controversial content that promotes, incites, or glorifies hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promotes organizations with such views.”
Incidentally, Amazon has no issues with selling all kinds of books and other items with the slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free.” which has nothing to do with colonization or land occupation but is a euphemism for the complete destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews.
If you do not see what is happening against the Jews today, beware because the Jews are definitely the canaries in the goldmine of civilization. A global explosion against Christians and conservatives is next and not far behind. In the meantime, much can be done to come to the rescue of Jewish people. My people are scared, and Christians now have a great opportunity to reach out, rescue, and shelter their Jewish friends and neighbors.
Kristallnacht 1938 was localized to Germany, eventually spreading to greater Europe. Kristallnacht 2.0 is a global pogrom against the Jews!
